Talk to Her Blog

Talk to Her is a modernized version of Sleeping Beauty. The figure of comatose is central throughout the film, suggesting that there is an altered state of reality when a person falls into such a thing; that life continues and the person is aware of what is happening around them when this is not the case. Marco, who met and associated himself with Lydia is symbolic of the sleeping aspect of the film, as he does not yet know what he wants or what those who surround him mean to him, thus, effectively making Marco unaware and in a conscious comatose. This theme is personified with Marco’s venture to Jordan once Lydia falls into the coma, since Marco completely cuts himself off from the life he was living up until that point. Simultaneously, Beningno is consciously aware of his surroundings, while the woman he’s loved throughout the years of his life, even from afar, is in a coma. Beningno, in contrast to Marco, is completely and utterly aware of his surroundings and all of his actions. Beningno is aware to the point at which he feels that he can transcend the boundaries of reality by, for example, speaking to Alicia while she is in her coma, or reading Marco’s travel guides, as if to be with him at all times and learn what he is learning, without physically being present at Marco’s locations. The theme of Sleeping Beauty is displayed by the fact that it takes the death of a loved one to wake someone up to reality in any sense, as displayed by the deaths of Lydia, Beningno, and Beningno’s child. By creating new life, Beningno is able to give Lydia a second chance at life and make her away, while simultaneously, giving up his awareness to bring Marco back to reality, by committing suicide. The films displayed loss both as a mechanism for the fall from reality and the return to reality, and the culmination of this is the moment at which Alicia and Marco are seated within the theater, two rows away from each other. The loss is given its own seat, to further show that the two are aware of each other’s presence.